Thanksgiving, through the eyes of a dieter

I CANNOT WAIT for the big day!! I'm SO going to make all the things we love this year. The husband prefers we order a big meal from Albertsons, like we've done in years past, but not this year!

I'm on day 7 of this diet & I'm still struggling a bit. I hear it gets better & I believe it will, but it's hard for me to get into the spirit of my favorite season when it doesn't include things like pumpkin bread, & pumpkin pie, & popcorn balls, & other yummy things like these.

Okay, enough food talk. I'm driving myself crazy thinking about it & it's that much worse talking about it.

I'm down 7 pounds as of this morning. YAY!! It makes all the moments of struggle worth it. Dave is on day 11 & is struggling quite a bit. He fell off the wagon & ate large amounts of delicious crap Monday night while at a work party. I feel badly for him but at the same time I'm really grateful he did that. Now I see what it would do to me if I gave in & devoured that bag of Chex Mix or an icecream sandwich or three. It helps keep me in check. Plus, if I do fall off the wagon like he did, at least he did it first. :) Cause if it had been me, I would've NEVER heard the end of it. LOL

I'm finding, by the end of the day, I'm struggling just to eat as much as I'm supposed to. I'm either not interested in food or not hungry. I think it might be slowing down the process, but I'll take every pound loss I can get!

My favorite time of year!

I love waking up in the morning to the coolness of fall. I started feeling those cooler temperatures late last week, while taking Ty to seminary. This morning it was in the 60's!!


I miss seeing the vibrant colors of fall around me. I'll take the nice weather in exchange, for now. The picture reminds me of this time of year in Missouri. It's so gorgeous there, with rolling hills of trees in every shade you could imagine. It was 10 years ago this week I went to St. Louis with my sweet (now ex) sister-in-law, Liz, to go through the Temple for the first time. What an amazing experience!!

I just love fall. It takes me back to exciting days past.

Keep it in the can, man

Though my house looked like a whirlwind swept through , I still felt like we had a very productive day yesterday. Any day when the days & weeks of spiritual preparation show that it has sunk in is a productive day in my book.

Most days we have a lot going on in our house. Some days it's harder than others to remember we should try our best to keep our anger & frustration with each other in check. So last night we had an FHE lesson on anger. I got my idea from here.

While we didn't go so far as to string pots & pans & cans up on the back wall (you're welcome, neighbors), we did splurge & purchase some "Easy Cheese" & Wheat Thins. The banging of pots & pans when angry would've sent me off my rocker, so we chose to avoid that.

From that lesson spawned a new catch phrase in our home. Just like "cheese" in a can, once you let your angry words out you can't put it back in. So now we all say "Keep it in the can, man".

Too bad we couldn't come up with something that rhymed with "dude". That would've been cooler. :)

Another Birthday Boy!!

Yesterday we celebrated 4 years of life with our youngest son, Logan. He was the first of our babies to be born here in Las Vegas. He was our biggest baby by nearly a full pound & he proudly carried that extra pound in his cheeks, as you can see from this picture. He was about 2 weeks old here.



Though he wasn't the prettiest baby, I was always extra proud of those rolls. I love a chubby, healthy looking baby. Yummy, as my midwife would always say. :)

Dave got to name him & chose Logan Shaun. It was better than LaShaun, like he swore would be his name from the moment I agreed he could name him. After he was born, we agreed we should have waited to name him until we got to know him. One of the names Dave was thinking about was Michael. I balked at this because then he'd get his way & have a Michael & a Jordan, something I wasn't going to have. As it turns out, he is very much a mischievous Mikey & we should have given him the name Michael after all.

When he was born, something rare took place that we still remember to this day. My most wonderful midwife & friend, Kaye Bullock, was there to help me through my labor & to catch him as he came in to the world. It was just Kaye, her apprentice Sandy, & Dave there that night with me. My dear friend Onala came by that afternoon & took Tyler & Jordan off our hands.

Logan was born in the caul, or behind a veil. Because of the drastic number of babies who are born by induction, it has become an even rarer event. My water never broke until after he was born, making him a true Caulbearer. I had heard the term before but never knew what it meant or the stories behind it. There are many legends out there & some of them too far fetched even for me, but the consensus is that those born in the caul are very spiritual people & they are very intuitive by nature.

Since Logan is only 4 years old, it's hard to tell if any of those things are true, but the history of it all & the well-known Caulbearers of the world are neat to learn about.

Logan is an amazing little athlete. He has a mean golf swing & loves to pretend he's Tiger Woods. His favorite shirt is a red Polo because of his love for Tiger. He is very protective of his little sister. They are only 14 months apart & are very close. If any other little boys come too close to her or try to play with her, he will quickly block their way (often not being very nice about it) & tell them to leave his sister alone (in his most intimidating face & growly voice).

Logan is totally a Daddy's boy. He looks like Dave far more than any of the other kids. He loves to follow Dave around & nearly every morning will argue with Dave about whether or not he has to go to work. He is very strong-headed & he doesn't have a filter for the things that come out of his mouth yet. There's never any question as to where he stands; he's always quick to let others know what he thinks.

The smile in this picture is typical of him. He hasn't figured out a real-looking fake smile yet & pretty much all his pictures come out looking this way. LOL



One of his gifts was a Woody doll. He LOVES Toy Story (more particularly Buzz) & now has a new buddy he won't let out of his sight.



We love this little guy & are SO glad he came to be part of our family!!

First Soccer Game!

Ty & the Desert Oasis High School JV team had their first game last night against Sierra Vista. It was an away game & the timing didn't work out for us to make it. Ty had hurt his ankle (doing who knows what; probably goofing off) earlier this week so he didn't play.

They lost.

The fun part about the night is I spent a good hour looking for him afterwards. I told him to ride the bus back to his school after the game & I'd pick him up there.

After 30 min. or so of driving around & parking, then driving around some more, I stopped & asked another JV player if they had seen him. The boy had seen him but was sure Ty wasn't on the bus coming home.

I moved on & decided to track down the coach to get some answers. The coach said he'd signed out (I now realize "signed out" actually means he didn't ride the bus home) & then double checked in his roster to be sure before telling me he was sure he saw Ty return trip. He didn't look as sure as he sounded so I ran home to get my cell & make some phone calls.

I guess the bus left him at Sierra Vista. They dropped the boys off in on place, then picked them up in another, so he wound up missing the bus.

Shortly after leaving to grab him from the other school, his coach calls & I can tell he's a little panicked. He said they did a head count before leaving the school after the game & the numbers turned out correct. He clearly isn't a math teacher, aside from being the soccer coach.

Coach wanted me to call him as soon as I got Ty. I understand accidents happen but I was a little irritated at being told something when he wasn't sure of the truth of his words. These kids are their responsibility when in their care. It was careless to leave someone behind. Hopefully it'll be a good learning experience for everyone.

I will now be at all of his games, even when there's something conflicting. Ty will stick with the group & not go off on his own. And hopefully the coach will either learn how to count & then re-count until he gets the same number at least two times, or call names off a roster instead of his normal guessing game. :P

Birthday Party FUN!

Last weekend we celebrated both Jordan & Tyler's birthdays. Vickie came in town from Reno for their birthdays, as she has every year since we moved to Vegas.

Tyler invited a large group of boys since we decided to have a party "in" this year. He wanted to take a bunch of friends to Gameworks but after finding out how much something like that would cost, we decided against that idea. We set up the casita with a few small tv's, some game systems, & a lot of cold refreshments. The boys arrived shortly after we got home from Soccer practice.

I didn't realize how many people were actually there until I went out back & did a head count so I could order what I thought would be an appropriate amount of pizza for these STARVING, growing young men. Ten boys & seven pizzas later, there were still a few left hungry but we were headed off to the movies to see G.I. Joe.

All the boys seemed to enjoy the movie & afterwards (instead of letting them roam around Town Square like they wanted to...it's a NUT HOUSE there on a Friday night!! I never knew!) Dave & I came in both cars to pick them up & drop them each off at home. It was fun seeing a few boys from our old ward we hadn't seen in a long time.

These are the only pictures I got of the bunch. It was impossible to get them all together in one shot.

Here are a few pics of Ty on his actual birthday.

We gave him his gifts from the family that day. We love to mess with our kids & give them a hard time whenever possible, so that small cylinder-shaped present in the front is actually just a wrapped can of soda. There were a few other gag gifts, too.

Jordan's birthday party was on Saturday. He had six friends come to celebrate with him & celebrate they did!

As soon as they got here they all got a "lab coat" (essential for budding mad scientists!). They made some goggles, picture frames, & each got a name tag.

We made slime, which was either the coolest thing ever or the grossest thing ever, depending on who you asked.

We had an atom bust contest. Each of the kids would get a balloon tied to their ankle & they would try to protect it from everyone else. They had so much fun chasing one another around, trying to pop everyone elses "atoms"! It was the loudest but funnest part of the whole party, if you ask me!

Our eyeball cake turned out to be a hit. Jordan wanted red velvet cake to have more of a "real eyeball" effect.

We had some pinata issues (I think I filled it too full) & instead of breaking it open with a stick the kids had candy & toys rain down on them (somewhat painfully, I imagine....hey, I told them to stand back! LOL). After gathering up all the candy, they had fun practicing their newly acquired kazoo skills with one another.

We had plans to make an exploding volcano but the time simply went too quickly. Overall it was an extremely fun but exhausting weekend! The kids were so fun to have over & it was great seeing everyone enjoy themselves so much!

Fall Sports

It's here!

I'm brave (crazy) enough to have 3 kids in sports this Fall. Ty made the soccer team at Desert Oasis, which he's totally stoked about. They had their first assembly yesterday & the team got to wear the jersey's to school along with some khaki pants. Who knew slim-fit Dockers cost so much!? And what's with the skinny jeans/pants craze going on right now? I don't get it. Anyway, he's been practicing like mad every day after school since the first day of school. His first game is next Thursday & I know he's excited to get out there & play!

Jordan & Logan have both been signed up for Fall baseball/t-ball. We did it in the Spring & Jordan loved it. Logan had issues with the coach, the teammates, the ground (anything & everything) if his mood wasn't just right. It wasn't easy, but he says he wants to do it again. I'm sure this time around will be easier for him. He was so shy in the beginning & by the last game I didn't have to stand out on the field or in the dug out to coax him to do what he was supposed to do.

Both the boys have a mean swing & Logan has an amazingly accurate throw. The first time Logan's coach actually got him to participate he made a comment about what a great golf swing Logan had. That's very true but not such a good thing for t-ball. LOL

Jordan will be in the 7-8 year old division this time which means he won't be in coach-pitch anymore. I hope the kid pitchers are also fast movers! There was several games when the coach had to hustle to get out of the way of a ball Jo hit. He really cracks them off hard! It was rare to have a ball not wind up in the outfield.

Baseball starts in the next couple weeks & that will mean at least 3, sometimes 4, practices & 2 games each week. If they didn't enjoy it..... I don't enjoy being so busy but I guess that's what you get when you have more than the average 2.5 kids. ;)

In the Winter I think I'll sign Hayleah up for a tumbling class, or maybe dance. She loves to shake it. :)

It's going to be a very busy Fall for us, but as long as the kids are having a good time I think I'll survive. I'm not interested in running the bases with a three, almost four, year old tucked under my arm this time around. That happened a few times too many! LOL I plan to spend more time in the bleachers this season, that's for sure!

Risky Bidness

Hayleah, the big girl that she is, is a whiz at this panty-wearing stuff. Though I know it's risky to let her wear them instead of a pull up whenever we go places, she manages to stay dry as long as I don't make her mad in some way.

She has this fun, new, quirky little behavior where she will just stand there & pee if you make her mad. It's a revenge thing. She knows which buttons to push & by George does she use this knowledge!

Who knew a two year old with big girl panties would use her new skills as a weapon!?